


Someone to Watch Over Me

by Evenmoor



Series: Grimm Numbers [2]
Category: Grimm (TV), Person of Interest (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fusion, Death, Gen, Kidnapping, The Key, Violence, Wesen characters
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-05-28
Updated: 2013-05-28
Packaged: 2017-12-13 06:16:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 11
Words: 12,322
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/820984
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Evenmoor/pseuds/Evenmoor
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When a certain Portland police detective comes to New York City, he becomes the next person of interest. Unfortunately, the team has no way of knowing how much trouble Nick Burkhardt is bringing with him. It's certainly enough to give a Fuchsbau heartburn.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This is a companion piece to "A Rare Bird," in which several of the Person of Interest characters are Wesen from Grimm. Detective Fusco, for instance, is a Fuchsbau - a fox-like Wesen. When a Wesen reveals its true face, intentionally or inadvertantly, it is called a 'woge' (pronounced VOH-guh in Grimm), or 'surge'. Normally, Wesen are indistinguishable from everyday humans, and live out their lives among them. They have jobs and friends... and enemies. 
> 
> And, of course, Social Security Numbers.

Detective Lionel Fusco leaned back in his desk chair and closed his eyes wearily. However much he disliked writing reports and filling out paperwork, he was glad that Wonderboy hadn't called lately with another impossible assignment that could get him killed... or sacked by Internal Affairs. Much to his pleasure, it had been positively peaceful in the precinct for the last few days, if such a thing were possible for a Homicide Task Force.

Of course, that usually meant that something was about to go terribly, horribly wrong for him. He was a bit philosophical about it at this point; no doubt Wonderboy or his friend with the glasses would call at any minute, and he'd have to go off on some seemingly-arbitrary job, following someone, or maybe planting evidence, or "borrowing" a case report.

Part of him wanted to find out where they got their information. But self-preservation (which had always been a key ingredient of his genetic make-up) told him to stay as far away as possible. He was a Fuchsbau, not a rampaging Blutbad, after all. Let Carter meddle in that sort of stuff.

"Detective Fusco?" a voice interrupted his meanderings.

Lionel opened his eyes to see a man standing next to his desk – a moderately tall, athletic fellow with dark hair and brilliant blue eyes, and no doubt a charmer with the ladies. The pudgy detective sat up straighter in his chair, not bothering to hide a reflexive annoyance at the man.

"Yeah, that's me. Who're you?" he demanded.

The man's eyebrows twitched in slight confusion. "I thought you knew I was coming. Detective Nick Burkhardt... Portland Police Bureau... ringing any bells?" He lifted the hem of his shirt a bit to reveal a shiny gold shield on his belt.

The Fuchsbau glowered as he rose to his feet and offered his hand to shake. _Perfect, just perfect._ Prettyboy was a detective.

"So you're the guy here for the glorified ride-along." He'd forgotten about it. Understandable when trying to juggle normal police work with managing his less-than-official work with HR and Wonderboy. This guy might be a problem if he looked a little too closely at Fusco and Carter's extracurricular activities.

Despite Lionel's grumpiness, Prettyboy didn't seem put off. "Hey, I'm just a last minute stand-in here," he replied, throwing his hands up helplessly. "The guy who was supposed to come caught chickenpox from his kid at the last minute."

Lionel shuddered slightly. He hated getting sick. "So your captain stuck you with the job of coming to New York to learn the latest and greatest in police strategy and tactics from the elite Homicide Task Force," he replied sarcastically.

Prettyboy flashed a charming grin; it was already grating on Lionel's nerves. The guy really was too pretty to be a real cop. "Hey, I don't mind it so much. I actually grew up about a hundred miles north of here, in Rhinebeck."

"Really." Lionel actually didn't care in the slightest, but Prettyboy didn't seem to notice. "You should meet Carter, my partner. She's around here somewhere." _One_ of his partners, at any rate. _Sadly, the least annoying._   Lionel glanced around vaguely. Maybe he could foist this guy off on her, or one of the other detectives. Though, with his luck, he was stuck with Prettyboy. He always got stuck with the worst jobs around the precinct because these guys thought he didn't deserve to be here. Unfortunately, they were right.

Prettyboy opened his mouth to say something, but Lionel's phone abruptly rang, neatly cutting him off. The Fuchsbau checked the caller ID: AYPD. _Answer Your Phone, Detective._ Cute. He grimaced in annoyance. Perfect timing. Just perfect. "'Scuse me, I gotta take this. Ex-wife," he lied.

Prettyboy threw up his hands with another brilliantly white grin. "My partner's got three or four of those. I know how it is. Go ahead - I'll wait."

Lionel stepped quickly into an empty office and answered the call. "Your caller ID gets cuter every time, you know that?"

_"We have a new job for you, Detective Fusco,"_ came the voice of Wonderboy's friend with the glasses, calmly ignoring Lionel's quip.

"Well, that might be a little problematic at the moment," he objected in a low voice, glancing out the window at Prettyboy, who was sitting on the edge of his desk. "I got this detective from Portland hanging around the precinct. He's gonna notice something if I disappear on him."

_"Yes, I'm aware of that, Detective,"_ the prim voice continued smoothly. _"We need you to keep an eye on him."_

"What? Why?"

_"Just do your job, Detective, and we'll get back to you. Don't let him out of your sight."_ With that, Mr. Glasses hung up on him.

Great. Just great. Lionel heaved a sigh and put away his phone.

 

 

* * *

 

**Locating Subject...**

**…**

**…**

**…**

**Subject Located**

**Checking Databases...**

**…**

**…**

**…**

**Name: Burkhardt, Nicholas**

**SSN: XXX-XX-5422**

**DOB: 06/18/82**

**POB: Rhinebeck, NY**

**Occupation: Portland Police Bureau ACTIVE**

**Violence Probability Index: High**

**Threat Category: Non-relevant**

**Threat Level: High**

**IMMEDIATE ACTION REQUIRED**

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Detective Fusco is quite possibly my favorite character on _Person of Interest_. He started out the series as a dirty cop being squeezed for inside information by Reese, but he is slowly redeemed by his association with Reese, Finch, and most importantly Carter, his partner. At the moment, Fusco is currently infiltrating HR, a massive organization of corrupt cops that rivals the mafia dons for underworld power. Any wrong move he makes could get him killed by HR or investigated by NYPD's Internal Affairs.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Nick Burkhardt didn't get the welcome he'd been hoping. He does, however, get a case.

Nick's introduction to the NYPD Homicide Task Force hadn't gone nearly as well as he'd hoped it would. Detective Fusco didn't exactly roll out the red carpet for a visiting out-of-state colleague, did he?

He raised an eyebrow as he watched the slightly overweight detective step into an unoccupied office to take his phone call. No doubt this was the guy on the bottom of the food chain in this precinct, especially if his attitude was anything to go by. Nick nudged a "Dutch for Dummies"-type book out of the way to sit on the edge of Fusco's desk.

The desk also featured a silly-looking cop doll, which no self-respecting police detective would actually display if it weren't a gift from a loved one. Fortunately, Juliette hadn't really been the type-

Juliette.

Nick sighed deeply. The situation with Juliette was not growing any easier - for either of them - and he was getting increasingly frustrated with sleeping on the couch. He'd jumped at the opportunity to get out of Portland for a while, much to the ill-concealed relief of Monroe and Hank.

His friends' concern for his well being was appreciated, but unless they could cure her amnesia, there wasn't much a blutbad or a fellow detective could do. And with Rosalee out of town, looking after her ill aunt...

A slammed drawer drew his attention to the desk across from Fusco's, where a handsome, dark-skinned woman in a professional-looking pantsuit tapped away at a few keys on her computer as she leaned over her chair. She had obviously just come in and was already on her way out when she noticed him and frowned, her eyes narrowing. She seemed about to say something to him when Detective Fusco came out of the empty office, his phone call apparently a short one.

"Carter," Fusco said with a nod. This, then, was the man's partner. Much better than he probably deserved, in Nick's estimation.

"We got another body, Fusco," the other detective informed him grimly.

Nick stood up and extended his hand to the woman. "I'm Nick Burkhardt, Portland Police Bureau."

"Joss Carter," she replied with a firm handshake and a tight smile, though she seemed much less annoyed at his presence than Fusco did. "You must be our ride-along that's been on the books for months. They picked a hell of a time to actually make it happen."

Nick cocked his head slightly in curiosity. "How so?"

"We've had a series of murders, got a lotta people on edge. You know the phrase 'ripped limb from limb'?" she asked, not a scrap of humor in her voice. Nick nodded briefly, and she continued. "Well, this gives it a whole new meaning. And we just caught another one, on the steps of a church. Part of him, at any rate."

"Any connection between the victims?" Nick asked, frowning a bit.

This question Fusco answered, as he grabbed his jacket and pulled it on. "Only that they were all wearing red."

"Red?"

"Yeah, _red_ ," the grumpy NYPD detective repeated, as if he thought Nick were an idiot. Maybe he did. But Nick knew something these guys didn't, a certain type of person who went crazy for the color red...

"What is it?" Carter asked, noticing his expression.

Nick shook his head, smiling to cover up his unease. "Nothing."

"Well, come on, then, we don't have all day," Fusco gestured impatiently as he led the way out of the bullpen.

As he sat in the backseat of their sedan on the way to the crime scene, Nick stared out the window at the sidewalks, packed with pedestrians. It shouldn't have surprised him, really. If there were a large number of Wesen in a city the size of Portland, how many more could be found in the crowded streets of New York? For all he knew, either or both of these detectives could be Wesen, too. Unless he saw them _woge_ , even he couldn't tell.

The red clothing on the victims had instantly caught his attention. His very first case as a Grimm - as Aunt Marie lay dying - involved a rogue Blutbad tearing apart a co-ed wearing a red hoodie, and later kidnapping a little girl in a red sweater, intending to fatten her up for a future meal.

_That_ case was bad enough, but a rogue Blutbad on the loose in the giant sardine can that was New York City? Blutbaden were basically on the top of the Wesen food chain, brutal and violent and almost unstoppable when enraged. Almost. A well-placed bullet could kill them just as effectively as any human, luckily. If you got the chance to draw your gun before the Blutbad ripped your arm out of its socket. Looking back on that first case, he realized how unbelievably lucky he'd been.

_Strange,_ he mused, how cases involving Wesen always seemed to come across _his_ desk...

Stuffing his hands deeper in his pockets did nothing to dispel the chill creeping up his fingertips.


	3. Chapter 3

**Accessing camera feed...**

**…  
** **...  
** **NYPD TrffcCm ChurchSt/BarclaySt  
** **Tracking assets: Carter, J., Fusco, L.  
** **Tracking target: Burkhardt, N.**

~o0o~

The entire front of the church was blocked with bright crime scene tape, and uniformed officers did their best to keep the crowds back. This was the fourth murder in the last month and a half with the same MO - vic ripped apart, torn to pieces. The gory scenes had turned even Lionel's cast iron stomach.

There was no apparent connection between any of the victims, aside from scraps of red fabric from what remained of their clothes - and the faint but still recognizable scent of a Blutbad. Of course, Lionel couldn't exactly put that in a report, any more than he could explain to Carter how he could smell it. _Oh, yeah, Carter, by the way, I'm really a supernatural creature related to a fox. Hey, how about a cup of coffee?_

Yeah, that would go over well.

The strange thing was that the first three murders had all occurred in a distinct pattern: one a week for three consecutive weeks, consistent with Blutbaden feeding habits, and then nothing. Lionel had assumed that the Blutbad had either been killed or moved on. And now, out of the blue, three weeks later, a new Blutbad attack?

He couldn't exactly follow up on the Blutbad angle himself, either; a Fuchsbau simply did not go around asking questions about Blutbaden, even if the Fuchsbau in question happened to be a cop. At best, they'd laugh in his face. At worst, they'd eat his face for dinner, along with the rest of him.

It was all extremely frustrating.

And to make things even better, he and Carter were saddled with Prettyboy from Portland, who was apparently going to be the next recipient of Wonderboy's attention. As soon as they arrived at the crime scene, their visitor/target immediately got out of the car and checked in with the clipboard-carrying uniform who controlled the crime scene. Carter stopped Lionel from following suit with a tense hand.

"I think he knows something, Fusco," Carter said in a low voice.

"What could he know, Carter? He just _got_ here," pointed out Lionel, glancing through the window at Prettyboy, who was busy signing his name on the clipboard. "Though apparently he's got decent security on his phone. That force-pair app that Mr. Glasses gave me didn't work on it."

"Our _mutual friends_ tell you to keep an eye on him?" his partner asked pointedly as her frown deepened.

Lionel grimaced. "Yeah. 'Don't let him out of your sight.' As if I didn't have a day job, and a night job."

Carter still looked concerned. "Did you see his face when you said that all the victims wore red?"

"What does this have to do with anything?" Lionel asked impatiently.

"It was like it _meant_ something to him," his partner insisted.

Lionel already knew what the red clothing meant; feral Blutbaden were attracted to the color red, in a sort of homicidal feeding-frenzy sort of way. But Prettyboy couldn't be Wesen; he didn't have any distinct _not-human_ scent to him, something shared by all Wesen. "Who knows?" he said dismissively. "Probably your imagination."

"Maybe." But Carter didn't look convinced. 

"Hey, Carter. Crime scene, remember?" 

As crime scenes went, it was brutal, bloody, and horrific. Limbs were scattered haphazardly across the stairs that led up to the church door, and drying blood coated the concrete. The torso had been shredded and disemboweled, and the head perched upright at the top of the stairs, eyes gouged out of their sockets. At first glance, it definitely seemed like the feral Blutbad had struck again. 

But something was off. It took a moment for Lionel to put a finger on it, after he controlled his heaving stomach, but he realized abruptly that there was _too much_ gore. The previous attacks had all been feeding frenzies, with goodly portions of the victims being consumed by the attacker. This was just as vicious as a Blutbad attack, but the guy appeared to be mostly still there, albeit in many tiny pieces. 

Of course, Lionel wasn't going to stop to count the pieces to make sure of this. That was what medical examiners were for, and he was more than happy to leave that particular job to them. 

Steeling himself, he knelt down next to that freakishly staring head, gingerly avoiding the blood stains on the concrete. Angling himself to ensure no one could actually see what he was doing, he inhaled deeply. His senses weren't as keen in his human form, but he could still catch a whiff of something undeniably canine. He could probably _woge_ to learn more, but he suddenly felt a tingling on his back. 

Craning his neck, he saw that Prettyboy was standing right behind him, an affable expression on his face. 

"He got anything to say?" Prettyboy quipped wryly, his brilliant blue eyes shining with humor. 

Lionel snorted and stood up, carefully hiding his discomfort. "Not to me, he doesn't. You ever see anything like this before?" he said, gesturing to the carnage before them. 

The other detective's expression abruptly turned grim. "Actually, something a bit similar, yeah," he nodded darkly. "Co-ed." 

"Huh." Lionel's eyebrows shot up briefly. Maybe this was what Carter had been talking about him 'knowing' something. Could it be he'd actually ran into a feral Blutbad in Portland? "You catch the guy?" 

Prettyboy's jaw worked momentarily before he answered. "Yeah, and rescued the little girl he'd kidnapped." 

"What happened to the guy?" Lionel asked, wondering how Prettyboy could have possibly survived an encounter with a feral Blutbad. 

The Portland cop snorted, his eyes now hard as any twenty-year veteran. "My partner shot him," he replied simply. 

Lionel decided his initial assessment of Prettyboy was wrong; there was something really rather disturbing about the expression on his face, cold and angry and tired. "Dead?" 

The strange look on Prettyboy's face vanished, replaced by that amiable smile. " _Very,_ " he asserted emphatically. 

~o0o~

**Recording phone call  
**  
 **Outgoing: 646-555-XXXX  
**  
 _"Allo?"_  
 _"Il est ici."_  
 _"Good. And don't screw this up like the others. Do what needs to be done."_  
 _"Bien sûr. Je comprends."_  
 _"You'd better."_


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Nick investigates the crime scene and makes a long-distance phone call. Someone, however, is watching him.

Nick examined the crime scene with a close eye, taking in every detail. Maybe it was a Grimm thing, but the carnage didn't make him want to hurl as much as it would have done a couple of years ago. That thought actually _did_ disturb him a little.

The victim's head eyelessly surveyed the area from the top of the stairs, while the other body parts were strewn almost carelessly around the steps. Right hand there, left hand, arms, legs, torso...

Hm.

He frowned in thought as he went down and crossed the narrow street for a view of the whole crime scene.

The viciousness of the kill definitely screamed "Blutbad", as did the scraps of red fabric that still clung to the remains of the torso. There was certainly blood everywhere, and shredded internal organs not so internal anymore.

So what was nagging at him about this picture?

A prickling sensation raised the hairs on his neck. Casually, Nick glanced around, trying to locate the source of the feeling; he'd learned to trust his instincts more than ever since his aunt died. He was being watched, he was sure of it.

Behind him was a construction site, fenced off and inaccessible. To the left, a busy intersection and a post office, part of the World Trade Center complex, if he wasn't mistaken. Looking right, the long street was currently closed off by the cops to secure the crime scene. Numerous bystanders stared across the barricade, shocked and horrified by the sight but too intrigued to look away. Reporters and other media people stood talking in front of the cameras. Cops, crime scene technicians, and other law enforcement personnel were swarming the area. In short, it was impossible to tell who was watching.

Grimacing in frustration, he made sure no one was particularly close before he pulled out his cell phone and dialed a familiar number. The line picked up after only a few rings.

_"Hey, Nick, how's the Big Apple? Listen, I know you're there for work and everything, but you gotta check out Sutton Clocks, it's so cool-"_

"Monroe!" It was possible for the talkative Blutbad to go on all day. Admittedly, this was better than the alternative, which was spread out all across the church steps.

 _"Yeah, yeah. Sorry. Oh, wait,"_ sighed Monroe in long-suffering fashion. _"Oh, no, don't tell me. Please."_

Nick winced slightly; he felt a bit guilty about involving Monroe in yet another police investigation, especially one not even in the same state. "Please, just hear me out."

There was a long pause. _"Fine. What is it?"_

"Well, it looks to me like a Blutbad attack. The victim was pretty much shredded, plus he was wearing red. There've been three previous attacks as well..." the Grimm explained concisely, trailing off a bit at the end.

 _"Nick, listen to me. You know how dangerous Blutbaden are, especially when hunting humans. As soon as you can, go and pick up some wolfsbane. It's also called monkshood or aconite, by the way. Hold on a sec, I think Rosalee's got the contact info for a Wesen herb shop over there. Lemme just check the book here..."_ Nick heard the rustling of pages over the line for several seconds as Monroe presumably flipped through an address book. _"Yeah, I got it. I'll text you the address. Try not to freak out the proprietor too much,"_ the Blutbad cautioned him emphatically.

Nick snorted derisively. Wesen seemed to freak out when the realized he was a Grimm, no matter what he did. "It's not intentional. Anyway, you know how I might be able to track down the local Blutbaden?"

_"I'm not exactly keeping in touch with the relatives, if that's what you mean. Wieder Blutbaden like me aren't really invited to all the family get-togethers. And because of, you know, our relationship, me helping you and all that, being friends with a Grimm-"_

"Yeah, I get it. Thanks anyway."

 _"Oh, and I don't think I need to remind you to be careful, Nick. Try not to get killed over there,"_ Monroe advised him in his typical combination of sincerity and sarcasm.

"Thanks," Nick replied dryly. "I'll try to remember that." He ended the call and returned the phone to his pocket. He'd have to wait until later to track down the wolfsbane; he didn't exactly have a good excuse to ditch the detectives he was supposed to be here observing. On the positive (or at least slightly less negative) side, the Blutbad would be sated for the next week, giving Nick time to track him down and do what needed to be done. As he pondered his next move, his phone buzzed, Monroe having texted him the address of the herb shop.

"Hey, you gonna do some actual observing over here, or you just gonna chat with your girlfriend all day?" asked Fusco acerbically, calling to him from across the narrow street. This, coming from the guy who had earlier fielded a call from his ex. If this was an sample of his normal manner, it was a wonder he ever made it to detective, let alone the homicide task force, Nick thought.

However, he had to put up with the guy for the next several days (when he wasn't going out hunting a Blutbad, at any rate), so Nick slapped on a cheerful smile. "What can I say, she misses me already," he replied with a careless shrug of his shoulders as he crossed the street to the other detective.

"So, hotshot, what's this crime scene tell you?" Fusco asked somewhat scornfully.

 _Probably more than it's telling you,_ Nick thought sarcastically. "Well, the victim was obviously dismembered, but it doesn't look like it was done by a knife or a saw. Looks more like an animal did it," he said with complete innocence before growing more thoughtful. "The head is a bit odd, though. It looks deliberately placed there, almost like it's mocking us."

Fusco's eyes narrowed as he glanced back up the steps at the empty eye sockets staring out over the scene. "It's creepy, if you ask me," he replied.

"What it is, is sick," Detective Carter said as she joined them. "Whoever's doing this needs to be stopped, and fast." A strange look passed between her and Fusco; Nick wasn't sure what to make of it.

"Did you guys determine how the previous victims were dismembered?" Nick asked curiously, wondering how close they'd come to discovering the truth.

Carter grimaced in disgust. "It looked like teeth, but we weren't able to recover any usable dental impressions. And DNA was a bust, too. You'd think that all the saliva we recovered would give us something, but every last bit of it was weirdly corrupted. Didn't even read as human. But there was no way an _animal_ could have killed those people without anyone noticing it."

"Yeah, that is strange," Nick agreed in feigned surprise. This information tallied with his previous experience.

"This scene's different from the others, though," Fusco observed, much more to Carter than to Nick.

"How so?" Carter asked as her brows came together.

Fusco made a face, shifting his shoulders a bit uncomfortably. "All the other bodies, what was left of them, at any rate, they were found in isolated locations."

"Abandoned factory, alley-" his partner nodded.

"And suddenly this guy's on the steps of a church in full view of a busy street," offered Nick, earning him a glare from Fusco.

"Well, at least we'll probably have camera footage of him this time," Carter said grimly, her eyes shifting towards the traffic camera at the intersection.

Nick stared up at the unblinking eye, all too aware that almost every step he took in this city was being watched.

The only question was who was doing the watching.


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lionel sees both too much and not enough.

Canvassing for witnesses was a bust, not that Lionel was honestly expecting anything else. In his experience, no one ever saw anything in New York, and those who did, saw too much.

The guy who discovered the mess - the church's pastor opening up for morning mass - knew nothing useful, despite his genuine desire to help. They probably wouldn't get anything useful from the tipline, either, just the normal assortment of nuts and dead ends. No Wesen in their right mind wanted to go up against a feral Blutbad.

For the most part, Prettyboy seemed content to sit back and watch Lionel and Carter, only occasionally interjecting or asking a question. He somehow managed to fade away into the background, a trait which annoyed Lionel even more once he realized it was happening.

It reminded him all too much of Mr. Happy, whose habit of appearing and disappearing at will was almost ghost-like. And Lionel didn't believe in ghosts. If he did, he'd have a few clawing at his own doorstep at night. Instead, he had a guy in a suit and his gimpy, glasses-wearing partner in crime (prevention) keeping him up.

In any event, if Lionel and Carter had been hoping for a break in the case, it seemed to be frustratingly elusive. A Wesen had done this, he was sure. But in his gut, Lionel grew more convinced by the moment that this was a copycat killing made to look like a Blutbad attack. That left the obvious questions of motive. Why would someone go through all the trouble? It wasn't actually easy tearing apart a person, after all. The canine scent he caught at the crime scene was important, but there were a number of different canid Wesen, Blutbaden among them.

Of course, it would probably help if they knew the identity of the victim. They couldn't exactly pass around a photo of the guy's face with his eyes all gouged out. Fortunately, most of his fingerprints were still intact, so if the vic had a record, they'd find it. Of course, fingerprint matches took hours, if not days, even when the servers weren't already on overload.

It was getting late by the time they returned to the precinct to review the security camera footage from the church. The view from the post office was obscured by the corner of the church, unfortunately, so that was no good. Their best hope was from the footage from the NYPD traffic camera, which they were promised they'd get later that night, and the church's own security cameras. Fusco wasn't holding his breath, though; he'd seen better cameras in mom-and-pop convenience stores.

"You've gotta be kidding me," Carter complained, her frustration palpable as she stared at her computer screen. The grainy footage showed the front door of the church - and nothing more than shadowplay in five second intervals.

"Well, so much for that," groused Lionel in agreement. Part of him (mostly his stomach) was relieved that there wasn't more to be seen on the footage.

Prettyboy frowned in thought, his brow creasing so that Lionel could almost hear the cogs turning in his mind. "How'd the victim or the perpetrator get to the church? And furthermore, how' the perpetrator get away after tearing the other guy apart? He'd've been covered in blood. He couldn't exactly have hailed a cab."

Lionel snorted derisively. "You'd be surprised." Some cabbies weren't at all particular about who they picked up, especially the ones who were driving illegal cabs or were just desperate for the cash.

"Yeah, but it's worth a look at the camera footage from down the street, see if we can catch them coming and going," Carter sighed, pinching the bridge of her nose. "Look, Detective Burkhardt-"

"Nick, please," Prettyboy said with a quick smile.

"Nick." Carter smiled back briefly. "We aren't going to get any more surveillance footage for a while, and the autopsy won't be done by tomorrow at the earliest. You can go get dinner, we'll call you if anything comes up."

"Thanks, I'm starving. Still running on Portland time." He was either even hungrier than he let on or just anxious to get out, because he took off in a greater hurry than he likely realized.

Carter chuckled lightly under her breath. "Remember when we were like that?" she asked Lionel wryly.

"I was never like that, Carter," Lionel grumbled as he grabbed his jacket and followed in Prettyboy's wake.

It wasn't too hard to tail the cab the Portland detective climbed into. After all, neither Prettyboy nor his cabbie had any idea someone was following them. Their route took them not to any nearby eatery but left Manhattan completely.

"What're you up to?" Lionel muttered as the cab finally pulled over at a strangely familiar address.

_Huh._ Lionel recognized the building Prettyboy walked into; it sold vitamins, herbs, teas, all that natural supplement junk that Lionel pretty much ignored - normally. But it _also_ sold some rather more _unusual_ items, especially for Wesen. Back when he was in uniform at the 18th, Lionel had busted the place for selling Jay. Despite its highly addictive, opiate-like effect on Wesen, Jay wasn't illegal, which made keeping it off the street difficult, if not impossible. So, Lionel had done a little creative evidence discovery and the Jay magically became cocaine.

That, plus a little ear-twisting, and the Reinegen who ran the place cleaned up his act in a hurry. Lionel had made a point to stop by every so often to check up on him until his transfer to the homicide task force.

Maybe Prettyboy was a health freak, but a million red flags shot up in Lionel's mind. Could he be Wesen after all, despite his human scent? There were some hominid Wesen, like the Wildermann, though he'd never once heard of a Wildermann becoming a cop.

"Move, and you die," said a thickly-accented voice coming from outside the car window. Lionel froze, feeling the instinctive _woge_ come over him. "A Fuchsbau?" the voice laughed coldly. "I do not know why you follow this man, but if you value your life, stay out of the business of the Verrat!"

"The Verrat?" Lionel scoffed in disbelief as his _woge_ faded, turning to face the man threatening him. "What're European dinosaurs doing in New York?"

The man scowled, and his face twisted, reshaping into a vicious-looking muzzle filled with sharp teeth. "This is your one warning, Fuchsbau. Leave now." The foreigner' _s woge_ faded, but his expression still promised murder as he returned to his own vehicle, a dark-colored SUV with at least one other occupant. Probably more, if Lionel had any sort of sense.

Swallowing nervously, Lionel grabbed for his phone and dialed quickly.

The line picked up in moments. _"This had better be important, Lionel,"_ came a soft, familiar voice.

"That depends, how important's a pack of Hundjäger to you?"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For those not overly-familiar with Grimm, Hundjäger (HOOND-yay-gur) are dog-like Wesen, excellent trackers, tenacious and vicious and definitely willing to kill innocent people if it leads them to their goal. They are found as enforcers, assassins, and bounty hunters, and are often associated with the Verrat (vur-ROT). The Verrat is a Wesen-world organization of seven royal houses, very powerful in Europe, but generally less interested in America. Wildermänner (VIL-der-man) are better known as Bigfoot, Sasquatch, and the Abominable Snowman and are generally friendly, nature-loving hermits and philosophers. Reinegens (RIE-ne-gan) are rat-like Wesen that are, rightly or wrongly, often considered the dregs of society.


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Things really start happening, and it's not going well for Nick.

Nick glanced around the shop in bemusement. He'd been expecting something a bit more... archaic? Old fashioned? Rustic? The Wesen world had always seemed so steeped in tradition, but the shop Monroe had directed him to appeared more like a modern-day drugstore or pharmacy, complete with whitewashed walls and harsh fluorescent lighting.

"Hey, can I help you?" inquired the fellow behind the counter, a shortish, dark-haired guy with a thick Brooklyn accent and a strangely smarmy attitude about him.

"Yeah, a friend recommended this place, said I could find what I was looking for," Nick replied.

"Really?" The guy grinned toothily, all but rubbing his hands together in glee. "What is it I can get for a new customer?"

"Wolfsbane."

The man's grin grew simperingly apologetic. "I'm afraid we're fresh out of wolfsbane, my friend. Perhaps I can interest you some valerian, it works great for insomnia."

Nick's eyes narrowed suspiciously. "You sure you don't have any wolfsbane? You wouldn't happen to have a stash laying around so you can, I don't know, gouge Wesen terrified of the Blutbad attacks?"

The shopkeeper's eyes widened, and his smile vanished as his face morphed to form rat-like features. Nick smirked. "Yeah, I thought as much," he remarked.

"You're a Grimm!" the Reinigen said faintly, backing up until he collided with a shelf. Several bottles clattered noisily to the floor.

"Tell me something I don't know," Nick muttered under his breath. "Now, do you have any wolfsbane or not?"

"Yes, yes, of course, just please don't hurt me!" babbled the shopkeeper, stumbling towards a back room. Nick felt slightly guilty about taking advantage of the guy's fear of Grimms, but his guilt was balanced by the fact that the guy was also a creep who was clearly taking advantage of the Blutbad scare to make a killing (the pun was terrible, but apt).

Glancing out the front window of the shop, Nick noticed a dark SUV (with tinted windows) parked across the street, occupied by at least two men who seemed to be looking everywhere but at the store. The little hairs on the back of his neck stood up, and he felt a surge of genuine anger. It looked like the same SUV he'd noticed cut off a sedan trying to make a red light - all the way back near the precinct.

"Here you are. This should be enough for whatever you have in mind," the Reinigen said anxiously, handing over a small white paper bag. "That'll be fifty-four dollars and ninety-five cents."

Nick shot him another glare.

The Reinigen laughed nervously; his eyes darted here and there. "Hey, you can't blame a guy for trying. I have to make a living, you know. For you, since you're a Grimm, and recommended by a friend and all, it's a round thirty."

Nick sighed, but pulled the cash from his wallet and handed it over. "Oh, by the way, if I find out you've cheated me, or that you're up to anything you shouldn't be, the NYPD will be all over this place. You never know what illegal substances a place like this might be hiding, after all."

"No, no, no, I'd never cheat a Grimm! And my shop is clean, I swear! I don't sell anything but the good stuff! And no Jay, either! I swear on my grandmother's grave! I don't need any more trouble with the cops," the man pleaded, nearly gibbering.

"Is there a back way out of here?" Nick asked pleasantly, with one last glance towards the front window and his mysterious followers.

"Yeah, yeah, just back there!" The Reinigen gestured vaguely towards the rear of the store.

The Grimm flashed a brilliant smile as he picked up his bag of wolfsbane. "Thanks."

As he stepped outside into the back alley, Nick had half a mind to pay a visit to the guys in the SUV, just to see who they were and why they were following him. The more prudent part of him urged him to remember that discretion was the better part of valor and just give them the slip. His decision was made for him, however, when he heard a loud crack and felt a sharp pain. Darkness swirling before his eyes, he stumbled into a wall as he plucked at the dart that had pierced his skin.

The last thing he knew before he collapsed to the pavement was the sound of nearby footsteps and a distant voice speaking in a foreign language, but he couldn't make out the words. Nick felt hands grabbing him. Dimly, he tried to struggle, to fight back, but the sedative in the dart relentlessly dragged him into unconsciousness.

~o0o~

Nick slowly clawed his way back to wakefulness. His head throbbed like a blacksmith was pounding away at an anvil inside it, and it quickly became obvious that Nick was zip-tied to a chair. Opening his eyes, he saw that he was in the middle of a pitch black room lit only by a single brilliant light which was shining painfully in his face. Water dripped nearby, lending to the decidedly creepy atmosphere.

 _"Il est réveillé,"_ someone said. Nick grimaced, testing his bonds. They seemed secure and not likely to fail without significant struggle on his part.

"Ah, good, our guest is awake!" a second voice, heavily accented, exclaimed with faux cheer. He sounded French, maybe Swiss. Nick wasn't exactly a language expert, though with everything that had happened to him lately, he was beginning to think that he'd better brush up. If he survived this, at any rate.

"I hope you realize that you just kidnapped a police officer." Nick squinted against the bright light, grimacing against both it and the headache.

That elicited a laugh from several different sources surrounding him. "You are far from home, Detective Burkhardt. You have no friends here who will come looking for you, nor indeed have any idea how to find you. Do any of them even know what you are?" The English-speaker laughed sharply. "Now, if you want to live, you will do as I say."

Anger shot through Nick, clearing his head of the lingering effects of the sedative. "Oh, I can hardly wait to hear what you want," he bit out sarcastically. "Hey, out of curiosity, were you guys the ones who killed the guy at the church, made it out to be a Blutbad attack? Maybe lure me away from the cops so you could take me out?"

His captors exchanged a few words in French, followed by some mocking laughter. "My associates say that you are smarter than you look," their leader said in amusement. "But do not try to change the subject, Detective Burkhardt. You were given an item, a key, containing a map. Please, do not try to deny it, it will only waste both our time. We know you are the keeper of this. You will tell us where it is, and then we will let you go," his captor said in a tone that sounded almost reasonable.

"No, you won't," Nick contradicted him, his lips stretching into a smile devoid of amusement. The key. It had been entrusted to him by his aunt before she died, along with a dire warning to tell _no one_ of its existence. A key, and a map, his mother later told him, to a trove containing some powerful artifact that would allow those who possessed it to rule the world. This stank of the Verrat. He didn't know a lot about the Seven Royal Families, but what he _did_ know wasn't very pleasant. "Even if I knew where this 'key' thing was, you wouldn't let me go. As it is," he shrugged as well as his bonds would allow, "I have absolutely no idea what you're talking about."

His captor sighed in resignation. "Very well, Detective Burkhardt, as you wish. We shall simply have to do this the hard way." He chuckled as he came closer. "I am sure you are familiar with _serum exomologesis_ , which forces certain types of Wesen to confess their sins. While we do not have such a potion for your kind, we can make do with less esoteric science. I am afraid, _mon ami_ , this will likely be quite painful for you."

At that moment, a phone rang in the darkness.


	7. Chapter 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Fusco and his friends discuss the Hundjäger and are alarmed when Nick is kidnapped.

**Accessing archive...**

**5:34 p.m.**

**Au Naturel Herbs, Spices, & Teas / Front Door Security Camera**

**Tracking asset: Fusco, L.**   
**Tracking hostile target: (Unknown Subject)**

_"The Verrat? What're European dinosaurs doing in New York?" - "This is your one warning, Fuchsbau. Leave now."_

**Accessing facial recognition databases...**

**…**

**Subject identified**   
**Pelletier, Denis, aka Gilles Boucher aka Gérard Gagnon**   
**DOB: 12/19/72**   
**POB: Geneva, Switzerland**   
**Occupation: Private security**   
**Violence Probability Index: Extreme**   
**Threat Level: High**   
**Outstanding INTERPOL warrants-**   
**Category of Offenses: organized crime/transnational crime, assault, murder**   
**Wanted by: Federal Republic of Germany (Bundesrepublik Deutschland), United Kingdom, France (République française)**

**...**

**Outgoing Phone Call: 212-XXX-XXXX**

_"This had better be important, Lionel." - "That depends, how important's a pack of Hundjäger to you?"_

 

~o0o~

_"Hundjäger?"_ Wonderboy asked sharply.

"Yeah, that's what I said," replied Lionel with equal bite. "They're watching our guy, and I just got warned off not very politely."

_"If you're still alive, Lionel, they were being extremely polite. Did they happen to mention who they were working for?"_

Lionel snorted rudely. "The Verrat. Can you believe it? Those Old World nutballs bringing their problems over here. Why can't they stick to Europe?"

A familiar fussy voice cut into their conversation. Somehow, Lionel was not surprised he was listening in. _"A better question is why they are interested in Detective Burkhardt,"_ Mr. Glasses pointed out.

"Hey, we're open to ideas here," Lionel snapped sarcastically.

_"Unfortunately, Portland lies outside my area of general monitoring, so it's taking a bit longer than usual to get the normal background information."_ The gimpy professor-type sounded annoyed at the delay, as if it were somehow a personal affront to him. _"I do know that our wandering detective was born in Rhinebeck, New York, and raised there until he was 12, when his parents, Reed and Kelly Burkhardt, were killed in what appeared to be a car accident-"_

_"Appeared?"_ cut in Wonderboy in disbelief.

_"As I was saying, Mr. Reese,"_ their friend in the glasses continued primly, _"the accident was eventually reclassified as a homicide but soon became a cold case. I haven't been able to get anything more than that on that particular subject yet. After his parents died, the young Burkhardt pretty much dropped off the grid until he joined the Portland Police Bureau. Then, a little more than a year ago, he was attacked in the street by a man wanted in several states for robbery, rape, and murder."_

"He sure seems to attract the winners, doesn't-" Abruptly, the Hundjäger's SUV pulled out, passing by Lionel's sedan with one last feral glare of warning through the window for him. "The Hundjäger are pulling out," he reported. "Should I follow them or-" A sharp, somewhat muffled crack interrupted him again, coming, it sounded, from the alley behind the store. That answered his question for him. "That didn't sound good," Lionel said as he threw open his car door and rushed into the shop.

Prettyboy was nowhere to be seen, nor was the Reinigen who ran the place; to make things worse, the smells from the multitude of herbs and spices and whatnot on the shelves made it difficult to pick out their scents. He noticed a few bottles scattered on the ground near one of the displays.

_"Lionel..."_ Wonderboy said distantly from the phone that now hung by his side.

"He's not here. Sorry, gotta put you on hold." Lionel unceremoniously dropped the phone into his pocket, trading it for his gun. Grimacing, he let himself _woge_. The scents in the air became crisp and clear, like putting on his reading glasses.

There! A human scent, with hints of gunpowder and oil and rain, heading towards the back of the store. Cursing himself for an idiot, Lionel cautiously followed the scent, exiting the rear door into the alley just in time to see a dark sedan pull around the corner and out of sight.

Now clear of the store, Prettyboy's scent became much more distinct - and it abruptly ended in the alley. Tossed aside were a white paper bag and a cell phone that Lionel recognized as belonging to the Portland detective. But possibly most telling was the heavy, lingering smell of Hundjäger.

The stream of curses he let loose would probably make a sailor blush.

He re-holstered his gun and put his phone back to his ear as he returned to human form. "Looks like our mangy European friend had backup, and I'm pretty sure they have our guy now, too. Don't smell any blood, so he's probably still alive."

_"Did you happen to catch a license plate, Detective?"_ asked Mr. Glasses, not missing a beat; Lionel could hear the new tension in his voice, however, and could imagine his eyes going wide at the sudden news.

"Not the car they had back here, it was too far away. Our mangy friend's SUV out front looked like a rental - New York plates, Yankee Sierra Foxtrot six four two two," Lionel replied as he bent down to retrieve the discarded cell phone and bag from the ground. "You know, something doesn't make sense here. Prettyboy only flew in from Portland this morning, and he told me that he was a last-minute fill-in for some other poor slob. So, unless these guys are psychic or suffering from a case of mistaken identity, they have to've thrown their plan together at the last minute."

_"No wonder they're being so sloppy,"_ Mr. Glasses mused distractedly.

_"Good work, Lionel. Now if you only hadn't lost Burkhardt in the first place..."_ Wonderboy opined. The annoyance was clear in his tone, which was drier than the Sahara during a drought.

"Hey, we can play the blame game all night long, but it won't help us find him," Lionel snapped defensively, dropping Prettyboy's phone into his jacket pocket. Out of curiosity, he opened the white bag, but recoiled almost instantly. "Well, that answers one question."

_"What is it, Lionel?"_

The Fuchsbau snorted, rolling the bag up and stuffing it in his pocket with the Portland detective's cell phone. "He's definitely into the Wesen scene somehow. The Hundjäger left behind a bag of wolfsbane when they threw him in the trunk. Stuff's gonna play havoc with my sinuses," he grumbled. "And, before you ask, all I could smell was human on him. Then again, _you_ smell human until you start beating the crap outta someone. Sure love to know how you do it."

_"Yes, Lionel, I'm sure you would,"_ the man in question replied ever-so-mildly.

_"Putting aside all of that,"_ cut in Mr. Glasses, almost as if he didn't want to be left out of the conversation, _"you might be interested to know that the SUV was indeed a rental, and I've activated its GPS transponder. I've forwarded the tracking information to your phones. If the Hundjäger all end up at the same location, you should be able to find Detective Burkhardt fairly easily. Hopefully before anything permanently untoward happens to him."_

_"Thank you, Harold. Lionel, you should probably get going. We wouldn't want Carter to get worried, now would we?"_

With a huff of annoyance, Lionel hung up and hurried back through the shop to his car. Carter had enough problems to deal with without discovering the giant steaming pile hiding just behind the curtain.


	8. Chapter 8

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A phone rings in the dark - who could it possibly be?

The phone rang again in the silence that had suddenly fallen.

" _Qui diable a laissé son téléphone allumé?_ " the leader of his kidnappers angrily demanded as the phone rang a third time. Nick heard several voices around him muttering in French as each likely denied being the owner of the offending device.

"You should probably get that - might be important," Nick remarked impudently, offering his captors an insolent smirk. The ringing ceased after a moment - only to be followed by the sound of five other phones ringing.

The sudden misbehavior of the phones did not amuse the kidnappers. Their leader began cursing volubly - being a cop, Nick easily recognized the profanity, even spoken as it was in French. While they were distracted, he started working on his bonds, trying to pull loose from his chair. To his surprise, he felt the zip ties securing his legs abruptly sever. Someone had obviously just cut them, freeing his lower body.

All at once, the phones stopped ringing. Only the faint dripping of water could be heard for a moment. Then one phone rang out, to be cut off by a snarl a moment later. "Whoever you are," Nick's captor said, "you obviously do not know who you are dealing with."

Nick couldn't make out what was being said by whoever it was on the other end of the call, but it certainly didn't make his captor happy. "Your little tricks won't save your pet, and you will have to answer to the Verrat for your interference!" he snarled. There was a slight pause. "This day, you are a dead man!"

"Oh, really," a soft voice abruptly cut in from the shadows. "I was just going to tell you the same thing."

All at once, the room exploded into violence. The lamp shining in Nick's face crashed over and shattered, flashing briefly before dying out. All around him, he could hear the sounds of men fighting, coupled with more dog-like snarls and growls. Nick twisted and pulled and managed to free his right wrist from the binding, leaving only his left tied to the chair.

He felt a gun barrel press against the back of his head.

"Do not mo-" The command was abruptly cut off, devolving into a gurgling whimper, and the pressure vanished. With a grimace, Nick finally yanked himself free of the chair and stood up, just in time to intercept a blow that would have hit him squarely in the temple. Even in the dark, his instincts remained spot on. Twisting his assailant's arm around viciously, Nick executed a sweep that took the man's legs out from under him, sending him to the hard floor with a brutal crack. Grabbing the chair he'd been tied to, he slammed it down on the guy like a bludgeon and heard a sound like a spattered melon - probably the man's head.

The entire fight from beginning to end lasted maybe two minutes. Then it was just Nick standing in the dark, wondering what was going to happen next.

"Who are you?" he asked the darkness. He could sense his unknown savior's presence.

A soft light appeared - the screen of a cell phone, pushing back against the blackness. Its dim illumination revealed at least six bodies on the ground, most of them quite obviously dead, with brutally broken limbs and necks. The phone rotated slightly to reveal the man holding it; he was tall (wearing a suit, of all things) with dark hair and pale eyes, either blue or grey.

"You can call me John," the stranger replied softly. "I had information that you were in danger. Tell me, how does a Portland police detective upset the Verrat so much they send a Hundjäger pack after you?"

It was not much of a revelation that his kidnappers had been Hundjäger. However, Nick was not at all inclined to tell a complete stranger about the key, even if the man had just rescued him. "I don't know," he said with sarcastic bite, "Maybe you should ask them that. It was a nice trick you pulled with the phones, by the way. And, just for the record, how did you know I was in trouble?"

The man, John, smirked slightly. "I have my sources," he replied simply. "Now, unless you want to wait around for someone to find us with a half-dozen dead European criminals, we should probably leave." Without waiting for a reply, he started walking off into the darkness. Nick scoffed in disbelief before following in his wake, stepping carefully over the body of the Hundjäger he'd taken down.

Throwing open a door, John stepped out into harsh outdoor lighting. The lights of the city reflected off the clouds, creating an eerie orange glow to the night sky. The Hundjäger had apparently held Nick in an abandoned warehouse, a cliché if he ever heard one. Parked by the loading docks were an SUV and sedan, which presumably belonged to the deceased Hundjäger.

"I see you found our guy," a familiar voice remarked from the shadow of the SUV. An overcoat-clad form detached itself, revealing to Nick's great surprise NYPD Detective Lionel Fusco, the same guy who had seemed so useless earlier at the crime scene. This whole trip to New York was growing more surreal by the minute.

"No thanks to you, Lionel," John replied mildly. "At least Detective Burkhardt's purchase at the herb store came in useful. I could never have gotten as close as I did without the wolfsbane. Thanks for that." He offered a brief nod to Nick.

"Uh, you're welcome, I guess." Nick's mind roiled in confusion. "Are you a cop? Because you sure don't look like one."

"What, him, a cop? Not on your life. Even if he plays one now and again." Fusco shot a glare at the man in the suit. "So, are we goin', or just hanging around? 'Cause I haven't eaten yet, and I'm st- Whoa, what the hell!"

Without warning, John had drawn a semiautomatic handgun from nowhere, aiming it with cool precision at Nick's head.

"Hey, hey, hey!" objected Nick, backing up several paces and carefully keeping his hands visible in a non-threatening manner. "You just saved me, and now you want to kill me?"

John's face changed; the features become sharp, feral, his pale eyes shifting from blue to blood red. The fingers gripping the gun resembled claws more than human hands. A low, almost inaudible growl filled the air; Nick could feel the vibrations in his chest.

"He's a Grimm."


	9. Chapter 9

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lionel is definitely surprised to discover that the Prettyboy Detective they just rescued is, in fact, the Prettyboy Grimm. It's like the whole world has turned upside down.

Lionel stared in shock and horror at the Portland detective. No, not 'the Portland detective.' The Grimm. They'd just saved a friggin' _Grimm_. All the blood drained from Lionel's face as he _woged_.

"A Fuchsbau and a Blutbad?" the Grimm remarked, his expression a cross of annoyance and surprise. If Lionel thought he seemed too pretty to be a cop, he was definitely too pretty to be a Grimm.

"What's it to you?" Lionel snapped defensively, forcing the _woge_ down and returning to human form. If the Grimm decided to attack him, it wouldn't matter what shape Lionel was in, anyway.

"There have been rumors of a Grimm active in Portland," Mr. Suit noted in a soft, dangerous snarl. His crimson eyes seemed to bore a hole in the Grimm's face.

Lionel rarely saw his 'employer' _woge_. Some Blutbaden, he heard, controlled the blood lust through vegetarian diet, or a strict exercise regimen, or even yoga. Mr. Happy, though - he broke bones instead of eviscerating his enemies, kneecapped them with rounds from a semiautomatic handgun instead of savagely gutting them with claws and teeth. Quite possibly the most terrifying form of Wieder discipline Lionel'd ever heard of.

"Why would the Royal Families set a pack of Verrat Hundjäger one of their own minions? _What did you do?_ " The Blutbad's growl would have scared off a pack of starving, vicious wolves.

The Grimm's lips twisted angrily. "I don't work for the Royal Families," he emphatically insisted. "I never have. And I'd be more than happy if they simply stayed far, far away from my little corner of the world. Look, I only learned about this whole... family problem... a bit more than a year ago, right as my aunt was dying."

"Marie Kessler," the man in the suit noted, his gun not wavering in the slightest at the name of one of the most feared Grimms in the world. Lionel was not nearly so cool under pressure, and swallowed heavily.

Nick Burkhardt's pretty looks notwithstanding, his family, the Kesslers, carried a reputation that was quite literally _bloody_. The spattered bits of Hundjäger on the man's shirt did certainly nothing to lessen that impression.

"I take it you've heard of her. Up until she was dying, I'd never heard of Grimms, or Wesen, or any of it." Prettyboy raised his chin defiantly. "John, or whatever your name is, I don't know what experiences you've had with Grimms. Though at a guess, they were probably bad. But, in the end, it's who I am, just as much as you're a Blutbad, and I've come to accept it."

"Hey, tell me this, _Detective_ : how can you be a cop _and_ a Grimm, anyway? Isn't that some sort of conflict of interest or somethin'?" Lionel demanded, trying to tamp down the hysteria that threatened to overwhelm him. All the horror stories he'd heard as a kid, that he'd teased his own son with, none of them had prepared him to come face to face with a real live Grimm. But this was happening, here, now, right before his eyes. It was _real_.

"I don't go around randomly chopping people's heads off, if that's what you mean." Prettyboy seemed slightly irritated, but continued anyway. "You're a cop. How does it work for you, being a Fuchsbau?"

"Yeah, but you're a _Grimm_!"

"Lionel," growled Mr. Suit warningly. "Be quiet."

Prettyboy shook his head expressively, glancing at the Blutbad pointing a gun at his head. "It's not easy. A lotta people are freaked out by me when they realize I'm a Grimm. But sometimes they have problems that only a Grimm can fix. A Coyotl whose 17-year-old daughter was abducted and almost gang-raped by her uncle and cousins, because of some barbaric old ritual. A teenage Blutbad who'd lived in the woods since she was seven years old after being kidnapped by a neighbor. A Seltenvogel being held captive by her Klaustreich husband and force-fed so she'd produce her golden egg-"

Wonderboy abruptly shifted back to human form, though his eyes retained the angry crimson of a Blutbad. "You've helped a Seltenvogel?" he demanded.

"Hey, I thought they were extinct!" Lionel complained irrelevantly. Both men shot shot brief glares at him, and he shifted his weight uncomfortably.

"Yes, I helped a Seltenvogel," the Grimm affirmed as he turned his eyes back to the Blutbad. "And I managed to safely deliver the egg without killing her."

Mr. Happy's eyebrows came together dangerously. "And what happened to the _Unbezahlbar_?"

Prettyboy snorted lightly. "I threw it up in the air to distract the husband and his oh-so-charming cousin the local sheriff, who was helping him. Both of them are now in jail, and the rock ended up shattered into a thousand pieces."

Lionel nearly choked: a Seltenvogel's 'egg' was supposedly priceless while intact, but the delicate golden stone became worthless when damaged. That the Grimm would just toss the thing in the air as a distraction...! Who _was_ this guy?

For several long moments, Wonderboy stood as still as a statue. Was Mr. Glasses talking in his ear, Lionel wondered? Probably. No doubt the mousy professor was the one who figured out that Prettyboy's aunt was a notorious Grimm. Once that connection was made, it didn't take a huge intellectual leap to guess that her nephew had to be a Grimm, too, given his knowledge of Blutbaden and wolfsbane, plus the Verrat's interest in him.

"Robin Steinkellner," the Man in the Suit said finally. The name, no doubt provided by their fussy friend, meant nothing to Lionel. The Grimm made no indication to confirm or deny Wonderboy's declaration, but there seemed to be _something_ , some sort of subtle understanding, passing between the two of them.

Whatever it was, it was enough for Wonderboy's eyes to return to their normal pale blue as he lowered his gun. Lionel let out a breath he didn't realize he was holding.

"You should get out of here. Go back to the precinct with Lionel here. Try not to kill him on the way; he's useful on occasion."

"Thanks." Lionel's voice dripped sarcasm. Even if Wonderboy had, for whatever reason, given the Grimm his stamp of approval, Lionel wasn't nearly so sanguine about sharing a car with him.

"You should probably give him back his phone, too, Lionel," the Man in the Suit noted in a mild tone, as if moments before he hadn't been ready to burst into murderous violence.

More than anything, Lionel wished he'd called in sick that morning.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Robin Steinkellner was the victimized Seltenvogel from "The Thing With Feathers." Seltenvögel are based off the mythological golden goose. Once in their life, they can produce a golden "egg," priceless but fragile. Seltenvögel are so rare that most Wesen believe them to be extinct. In my Grimm-POI fusion, Finch himself is one of these creatures - this is covered in my related short, "A Rare Bird," which is the literal translation of "seltenvogel".
> 
> A Klaustreich is a Wesen resembling an alley cat.


	10. Chapter 10

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Fusco shares an uncomfortable car ride with Nick back to the precinct.

The atmosphere in the car during the drive back to the precinct could have frosted Death Valley during summer. Nick had just been rescued by a Blutbad. Who was, apparently, working with a Fuchsbau police detective. Though the relationship between the two seemed less equal than a partnership - the Blutbad was clearly the boss.

No surprise there. From what Nick knew of Blutbaden, they were definitely near the top of the Wesen food chain, and most other Wesen were, if not outright intimidated, then at the very least respectful of them. But this "John" character clearly wasn't a cop. Organized crime? Definitely possible, coercing Fusco through bribes and/or intimidation to be his eyes and ears on the Force. And a member of Wesen organized crime might look at the Verrat incursion onto American soil as a threat - the killing of the Hundjäger pack was a definite message. Nick had sent a similarly brutal message to the Reapers, two heads via air express.

Fusco was practically twitching next to him in the driver's seat, constantly glancing at Nick out of the corner of his eye. Finally, Fusco's nervousness tipped Nick past his breaking point. He was used to Wesen freaking out over him being a Grimm, but this was downright annoying. "You've got questions. You might as well ask them," he stated pointedly.

"How does it work? You being a Grimm. You said you don't go around chopping people's heads off, and I appreciate that, really I do. But what do you do?" The question seemed to burst out of his mouth all at once, as if Nick had popped the top of a soda can that'd been shaken repeatedly.

"My job. I'm a cop, too, remember? I do my best to help people, I just don't always do it within the strictest scope of the law. And what about you?" he inquired ever-so-casually, "Does Detective Carter know about your little arrangement with your Blutbad friend? Or are you keeping that on the down-low?"

Fusco shot him an incredulous look. "'Down-low'? Do people even still say that? And keep Carter out of this. She doesn't know anything about the Wesen, and we'd all like to keep it that way. She's got enough problems as it is."

Nick chuckled bitterly, feeling not a trace of amusement. "I tried to keep all this-" he gestured vaguely, "-a secret from my partner Hank. After my aunt died, our cases started getting weirder and weirder, and he thought he was going crazy after he saw a Wildermann, full-on _woge_ , change back into a human after he died. Hank running into a Blutbad in the woods didn't help, either."

"Wait, you're tellin' me that your partner ran into a Blutbad in the woods, and he's not _dead_?" The disbelief in the NYPD detective's voice ratcheted upwards.

Nick winced; he probably shouldn't have brought up Monroe - the guy had already become a target for being friends with him. "Yeah, well, luckily the Blutbad in question is more likely to talk your ear off about clocks than eat you. Anyway, things really came to a head when Hank and I rescued the daughter of one of Hank's old school friends, she accidentally went full- _woge_ on him when she saw me. He nearly _shot her_ , a 17-year-old girl he'd known since before she was born, because he was so freaked out. I had to explain it all to him- Wesen, Grimms, the whole nine yards. And later... you know, he actually told me that that had been one of his better days, because he might be crazy but at least he wasn't alone anymore."

There was a long pause from Fusco's side of the car, probably as he gathered himself to actually make a reply to this story. "This partner of yours, what's-his-name-"

"Hank."

"Yeah, right, Hank. He's totally human, right? A, uh, what's the word?  _Kehrseite Schlichkennen_. He can't see anything we see, unless we're totally _woged_?"

"Yeah. So, now, every case we work, he makes sure to ask whether I saw something. Though he's usually pretty good at recognizing when I do. And if Carter is half the detective I think she is, she's probably going to figure out sooner or later that something weird is going on with you," Nick warned the Fuchsbau. "How long've you two been partners, anyway?"

"'Bout a year now," Fusco replied easily, apparently momentarily forgetting he was sitting next to a Grimm rather than simply a fellow detective. "But she won't notice anything. Too busy fending off the Feds who wanna recruit her. Among _other_ things."

There was something there that clearly made the Fuchsbau uncomfortable, beyond the fact that he was in a car with a Grimm. But Nick figured that was probably none of his business.

"Just out of curiosity, who was it that was feeding your buddy John the info on me?" Nick segued abruptly, remembering a far more pressing question on his mind.

The other detective shot him a look of confusion. "Whaddaya mean?"

"Well, John didn't get all hostile on me until we got outside. _You_ obviously didn't know I was a Grimm until he said so, plus I saw his earpiece when I walked past him to get into the car. Very covert, almost impossible to spot, but I was looking for it. So I'm guessing he had someone else, a handler or partner, maybe, who suddenly found out something. Probably discovered that Marie Kessler was my aunt and put it together from there. So, who is he?"

Fusco snorted, shaking his head in negation. "Honestly, I have absolutely no idea who he is, anymore than I know who our friendly neighborhood Blutbad really is. No clue. I don't even know if he's Wesen or not. And for both our sakes, you should leave it at that."

Nick wasn't overly impressed with Fusco's response. "This guy have a name?"

"Everyone's got a name, but the only ones I know are fake." The Fuchsbau shrugged noncommittally. "I'm not even sure _he_ remembers what his real name is. Anyway, you'll never find him. And if you're smart, you won't try. Really."

"Why, is he some kind of crime boss?" Nick asked, half curious, half derisive.

"What? No!" Detective Fusco strenuously objected, shooting him a look that was half surprised, half offended. "We _help_ people! Wait, you've been thinking this entire time that Wonderboy and me are part of some Wesen mafia or something?" He let out a huff of irritation.

"The thought had crossed my mind," Nick replied dryly. "You guys didn't exactly going about your little rescue mission by the book."

"Look, I've made mistakes in the past- big ones, and I'm still not exactly on the side of angels- but what we do, we do to help people. I don't know how they come by their information, but somehow they know when someone's in danger. They tell us who to look out for. Sometimes it's the victim, sometimes it's the perp. Sometimes we don't know who the hell it is. This time, it was _you_." Fusco let out a sharp breath as he pulled the car into the police parking lot. "I can't believe I just helped rescue a Grimm. From the Verrat! Un-friggin'-believable."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _Kehrseite Schlichkennen_ (KERR-zy-tuh SHLISH-kih-nihn) refers to a normal human who is aware of Wesen.
> 
> The Reapers are a more or less mercenary organization dedicated to hunting down and killing Grimms. Nick killed one with the help of his aunt in the pilot episode, and killed two more on his own in the season 1 episode "Leave It to Beavers" and sends the dead Reapers heads back to Europe with the message "Next time, send your best". Monroe, Nick's Blutbad friend, was shocked that Nick was able to defeat two Reapers by himself, pointing to Nick's surprisingly great skill for a neophyte Grimm.


	11. Epilogue

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Fusco and Nick return to the precinct; Lionel does not look forward to explaining things to Carter.

**Accessing camera feed...**   
**...**   
**...**   
**NYPD-Precinct 8-Parking Lot-Security Camera 2**   
**19:42:03**   
**Tracking asset: Fusco, L.**   
**Tracking target: Burkhardt, N.**

 

~o0o~

As the two detectives got out of Lionel's sedan in the police lot, the Fuchsbau looked the Grimm over with a critical eye. Surprisingly, Prettyboy looked hardly the worse for wear after being drugged and kidnapped by the Hundjäger. Unfortunately, his shirt was still covered with tiny drops of blood spatter - the shirt was dark enough that it wouldn't be noticeable to a casual passerby, but Carter would hardly miss it in the brightly-lit squad room.

"Hey, wait," Lionel grumbled, going around to the trunk. Popping the trunk open, he pulled out a spare shirt and tossed it at Prettyboy. It'd be large on him, but that was life. "Go clean up before heading back to the squad room. Shower's in the locker room, down the hall to the left. I'll go smooth things over with Carter."

Prettyboy grimaced, holding up the shirt. "Thanks," he replied with a heavy sigh. "You know, after today, the rest of my time at your precinct should be a cakewalk."

"Hey, don't jinx it," Lionel warned him. "Oh, there's a snack machine in the hall. Pick me up a sandwich - on you, Portland."

The other detective, the Grimm, grinned broadly. "Hey, if a sandwich is the only price I have to pay for you guys saving my life, how can I say no?"

Smoothing things over with Carter would probably be easier said than done, Lionel noted, blowing out a deep breath as he entered the squad room. Sure enough, Carter ambushed him before he could even reach his desk, and she definitely didn't look happy.

"Fusco, where've you been?" she hissed, glancing around to make sure no one was near. "You've been gone for hours! I tried to get ahold of you, and all I got was voicemail."

"Why, somethin' happen?" he asked innocently, sidestepping the question completely.

Carter shot him a look of frustration. "We got a tip that some European organized crime syndicate was making a move on American soil, that all the victims- the ones that were torn apart- all four have connections to the Moretti crime family, and that means-"

"Elias," Lionel finished for her. Carl Elias gave Lionel the creeps. He looked like your kid's math teacher, not New York's scariest up-and-coming crime boss. Elias was in jail, but it didn't seem to slow him down much. Though Elias, for once, had no idea what he would be dealing with - he was human, and completely in the dark about the Wesen world.

It was a strange coincidence, then, that the Verrat Hundjäger pack chose to kill one of Elias's men on the steps of the church. After a feral Blutbad had already apparently eaten three others? It didn't make sense.

Then, abruptly, it did. Lionel cursed under his breath.

This had to be the work of their friend in the glasses - the fussy professor was laying a false trail, making a connection between the victims where none existed before, other than the red clothes, thus giving a plausible explanation for their deaths to the NYPD. 'Vicious organized crime incursion' was swallowed far more easily by law enforcement than 'inexplicable wild animal attack'. But this route left open the possibility of retaliation on the part of Elias, once he figured out who was (supposedly) behind it all.

So Wonderboy ended it before it all began, by ruthlessly eliminating the supposed instigators of it all, the Verrat's Hundjäger. Elias would know (or at least strongly suspect) who was _really_ responsible for the extermination of the supposed "Euro-gangsters", and was smart enough not to respond, and his reputation wouldn't suffer in the slightest. Meanwhile, all that the Verrat would know was that their hounds were killed while going after a Grimm. Neat and tidy. All it lacked was a little bow to top it off.

"What?" Carter demanded, her brows coming together at Lionel's reaction to her news.

"Wonderboy and Glasses. I'm pretty sure they took care of the problem earlier. While I was out following our Portland friend," Lionel replied circumspectly. "Anyway, let's just say that you shouldn't be surprised to get a call-out to a scene with a half-dozen or so dead Euro-gangsters."

There was something tragic in the way she didn't even blink about this sort of thing anymore, as she glanced around the room. Being around Mr. Happy was changing her, and not entirely in better ways. "Yeah, and where is Detective Burkhardt, anyway?"

"Locker room. Some mook got him with a pot hole fulla muddy water. I ran into him on the way in, gave him a clean shirt," the Fuchsbau lied easily. He was good at lying. One of the reasons that Wonderboy had let him live when they first met...

"We ever figure out why our mutual friends wanted us to keep an eye on him?"

Lionel shrugged noncommittally. "Apparently, he's dealt with some of these European gangsters in Portland, and they don't like him very much. Mr. Glasses just wanted to make sure he was kept out of trouble. Anyway, we had no problems tonight."

"Aside from the 'mook' with the pothole and the muddy water?" Carter said dryly.

"Hey, complain to the city council. It's not _my_ fault the streets need repaving."

When Prettyboy sauntered into the squad room several minutes later, Lionel was very annoyed that he somehow managed to look good in a borrowed shirt and damp hair. Some guys had all the luck.

At least he'd managed to wash off the smell of Hundjäger. Mostly.

Lionel sighed long-sufferingly. This whole "sharing NYPD tactics with our brothers in law enforcement" thing was way more trouble than it was worth.

And his sandwich was stale.

 

* * *

 

Several thousand miles away in Portland, Oregon, Captain Sean Renard of the Portland Police Bureau steepled his fingers as he stared out the window of his office at the empty desk in the bullpen. The pressure from his family to produce the Key from Nick was growing more intense everyday. He suspected that they might eventually try something on their own to get their hands on that damn Key.

Had he done the right thing, sending Nick off to New York? To make matters worse, Renard couldn't put thoughts of Juliette out of his mind- her hair, her eyes, how she smiled, how she laughed- it was all he could think about. Nick's girlfriend, whom Renard had saved from that Hexenbiest bitch Adalind. With a kiss.

Thinking about that kiss was a mistake, because suddenly he envisioned himself holding Juliette in his arms, running his lips down her neck as she moaned in ecsta-

Renard's hand clenched into fists, the nails digging into his palms.

He had to do something.

 

~o0o~

**Active camera feed: PPB-Bullpen-Camera 3 **  
 **16:56:22** ****

**Checking databases...**   
**...**   
**...**   
**Name: Renard, Sean**   
**SSN: XXX-XX-6099**   
**DOB: 10/21/73**   
**POB: Vienna, Austria**   
**Occupation: Portland Police Bureau ACTIVE**   
**Violence Probability Index: High**   
**Threat Category: Non-relevant**   
**Threat Level: Moderate**

**EVALUATING OPTIONS...**

**...  
**

**CONTINUE MONITORING SUBJECT FOR ONGOING THREAT**

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Carl Elias is an major recurring character on _Person of Interest_ , especially in season 2. He is the illegitimate son of mafia don Gianni Morretti, who he eventually murders (quite explosively). Elias then takes control of a large chunk of the criminal underworld in the city. Thanks to the efforts of Reese, Carter, and the others, he is eventually incarcerated.
> 
> Hexenbiest (female; male: Zauberbiest) is a sort of witch-hag. They like to brew nasty potions and are obsessed with keeping themselves pretty. Juliette fell victim to one such being, and was only saved by a prince's kiss, unbeknownst to her boyfriend Nick. Unfortunately, an unintended side-effect of the life-saving kiss was a growing mutual obsession between Juliette and Renard, which proved disastrous for both parties. The situation was eventually resolved, but not until Nick had suffered a great deal of emotional pain.


End file.
